Category: 1 Peter

“Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will grant you his blessing. For the Scriptures say, ‘If you want to enjoy life and see many happy days keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies. Turn away from evil and do good. Search for peace, and work to maintain it. The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and his ears are open to their prayers. But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil.'”

Psalm 34 shows us how different it is to be a child of God. Peter quotes the psalm here and reminds us that God’s ways give us a better life. “Get ahead by being honest!” said no American commercial ever. This message is counter-cultural. Turn from evil. Do good. God’s blessings will pour back on you when you pour them out to other people. In God’s kingdom, the more you spend, the more you have.

Peter says, “Search for peace, and work to maintain it.” That’s how hard peace is to keep around here. According to the New York Times, over the past 3,400 years of recorded human history, only 268 of them have been without some kind of war going on. No wonder we have to search for peace. We are looking high and low for something very missing in our world. And once we find it, be ready to work to keep it. The spiritual powers of darkness will not give up easily.

Here’s your freedom for today: God is on the side of peace. He opposes evil. He gives a long, happy life to those who turn away from evil. In Matthew 5:9 Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” If you are a child of God, then search for peace. Make peace where you cannot find it. Do the right thing — God sees your heart. He’s listening to your prayers for peace. He’s on your side when you fight evil. Don’t give up.

“Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.'”

Yesterday’s post about peace came exactly at a time we needed it most — yet another senseless mass shooting that once again raises so many questions. Today’s verses are poignant in the midst of such a time when we are traumatized and fearful. Peter quotes a passage in Isaiah that is a message for our modern culture as well. In short, don’t follow the people around you when they speak fearfully — we know that the only one we need to fear is God himself (and he is on our side).

If we are eager to do good, we find protection simply in that. You will generally be in the right place at the right time instead of the wrong place at the wrong time if you are following God’s ways. But even if you find yourself in harm’s way, needlessly suffering through no fault of your own, God sees. And he blesses you. So we do not fear the threats of our world. We will not be frightened by evil in any form.

Here’s your freedom for today: evil cannot win the war. God is watching, waiting, intimately involved in the permanent rescue of this world. A redemption story above all other redemption stories. Yes, some days things look really bad. We wonder where God is in the midst of tragedy and pain. But if we believe the Bible at all — if we believe that God has revealed himself in its pages — then we must cling to our faith that he has already overcome. We do not see. He sees. We do not know. He knows. We are impatient. He acts at precisely the right times. If our faith cannot stand on a day like today, then it cannot stand at all.

Pray with me: Jesus, we cling to you today, sitting in your presence and hiding under your wing. We ask for healing and redemption for all those injured and for the families of those who perished in Las Vegas yesterday. We repeat your words with great urgency: may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

“Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ. Remember, it is better to suffer for doing good, if that is what God wants, than to suffer for doing wrong!”

Recall that in yesterday’s post, Peter told us to ignore the fears and threats of this world. If we do that, we’ll have a lot more time on our hands and room in our minds for other things. Today’s verses help us know where to direct our attention: worship of Jesus. Since you’ll be using your emotional energy to focus on the hope that Jesus offers you, you will be able to easily talk about it with anyone who asks.

Now everybody come in real close for a team huddle here, because this next point is critically important and we generally are horrible at this. Ready? When you are telling people about Jesus, don’t be obnoxious about it. Just be gentle and respectful, even when people are atheists or pagans or worship their dead Aunt Sally. It’s okay just to talk about your own spiritual life without being argumentative or rude. If people attack you (and you therefore suffer) because you are defensive and angry in “sharing the Gospel,” then you really won’t get any sympathy. If you suffer for doing good, serving people no one else wants to be caught dead with, then God is perfectly okay with that.

Here’s your freedom for today: God gives you permission to be gentle and kind. In our day and age, we need permission for such things because they seem so unconventional. But as we discussed when we studied Galatians 5, gentleness and kindness are evidences of the work of the Holy Spirit. You don’t need to hit anybody over the head with a Bible (old Sunday school joke: the truth hurts!). You get to just worship Jesus and tell anyone who wants to know about your experience. You can also listen to their views as well. Respectfully listen. It is not a failure of evangelism if they walk away from that conversation with only a seed planted instead of a giant oak tree fully grown.

“Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit. So he went and preached to the spirits in prison— those who disobeyed God long ago when God waited patiently while Noah was building his boat. Only eight people were saved from drowning in that terrible flood. And that water is a picture of baptism, which now saves you, not by removing dirt from your body, but as a response to God from a clean conscience. It is effective because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now Christ has gone to heaven. He is seated in the place of honor next to God, and all the angels and authorities and powers accept his authority.”

I have to admit, this passage caught me off guard. Starting out, it seems like pretty straightforward Gospel-message stuff. Then in verse 19 it says, “So he went and preached to the spirits in prison — those who disobeyed God long ago when God waited patiently while Noah was building his boat.” Wait, what?? Hold on, so Jesus died, was raised to life in the Spirit (but possibly not yet physically), and preached to the people that rejected God back in Noah’s day?

For those of you who want to investigate this further, there are some commentaries that can illuminate various scholars’ positions. I tend to lean towards those who believe that this passage tells us some of what Jesus was doing for 3 days while he was dead (and descended into Hell). If anyone would have been privy to some of these fascinating details, it would have been Peter. Here he also uses the flood as a metaphor for baptism and our new life in Jesus. I also find it interesting that he contrasts Jesus’ descent into Hell with his ascent to Heaven.

Here’s your freedom for today: the Bible is full of mystery. You don’t have to understand it all. In fact, you can’t understand it all. If you were to agree with me that these verses describe Jesus’ days in hell, then what are the implications for him preaching to those who rejected God in Noah’s day? Can they be saved out of hell? What would be the point of preaching to them? If those questions lean you away from my position, then what position does that leave? Is this somehow a metaphor for something else? When we don’t understand, we have to hold our opinions loosely. We might be wrong. And that is why our salvation does not depend on our ability to articulate our doctrine.

“So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had, and be ready to suffer, too. For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin. You won’t spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God. You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy—their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols.”

“Be ready to suffer!” isn’t a winning slogan we’ve heard before. Even the commercials for joining the military sound more glamorous than that. Yet ultimately, as much as the Gospel is good news, the Christian life is about suffering. We celebrate Christ and the cross until we realize he wants us to imitate him. Some only get halfway up the mountain dragging a cross behind them before they give up.

So what is the benefit of suffering? Peter tells us here that if we suffer physically for Christ then we are “finished with sin.” That sounds good. Wouldn’t it be nice to stop chasing your own desires that keep leading you in the wrong direction and just be able to do what God wants for you all the time? This is why throughout church history some practiced self-flagellation (beating themselves with a whip in order to physically suffer). I don’t encourage this practice, because I think it misses the point. But voluntary suffering through fasting, giving away money or possessions to the poor, or risking your worldly reputation to stand up for justice are some ways we can suffer in the imitation of Christ.

Here’s your freedom for today: you can walk freely into liberation. You have the opportunity to be done with evil things. You can walk away from sin. Through Jesus we have the power to do this because we are no longer slaves to sin. The key to leaving sin behind is suffering, in part because sin often brings us temporary comfort. It’s kind of like saying, “I can be healthier by leaving chocolate behind!” The question then becomes, “Do I really want to?” How far into your own freedom are you willing to walk today by leaving behind the things you are clinging to?